Great Books Reviewed

Here is my plan for reading and reviewing all the “Great Books of the Western World”. Most of this list comes from greatbooksacademy.org but I’ve changed it a little bit.

These great books of the western world are the foundation for most of the ideas in our modern-day world in which we live in today.

Of course you need to read more widely than just these great books written by ‘old, dead, white men’. But you can always supplement this list with other great books from people of colour, women, and writers from other cultures as well.

This plan does not go through entirely all the great books, however it does go through most of the main ones. I would rather get through the most important books and then go back through the whole list to catch the others that are of interest to me.

Step by step like the tortoise is the best way.

So, let’s get started.

Year 1: Great Books of the Ancient Greeks

Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound

Homer – The Iliad

Homer – The Odyssey

Aeschylus – Agamemnon

Aeschylus – Libation Bearers

Aeschylus – Eumenides

Euripedes – Trojan Women

Euripedes – Alcestis

Aesop – Aesop’s Fables

Sophocles – Oedipus Rex

Sophocles – Oedipus at Colonus

Sophocles – Antigone

Euripides – Hippolytus

Herodotus – Histories

Plutarch – Lycurgus

Plutarch – Solon

Plutarch – Pericles

Plutarch – Alcibiades

Euripedes – Medea

Euripedes – Bacchae

Thucydides – Peloponnesian War

Plato – Ion

Plato – Meno

Plato – Gorgias

Plato – Republic

Plato – Symposium

Plato – Apology

Plato – Euthyphro

Plato – Citro

Plato – Phaedo

Aristotle – Poetics

Aristotle – On the Heavens

Aristotle – On the Soul

Aristotle – Ethics

Aristotle – Metaphysics

Plutarch – Aristides, Alexander

Hippocrates – The Oath

Hippocrates – On Ancient Medicine

Hippocrates – On Airs, Waters, Places

Euclid – Elements

Year 2: Great Books of the Ancient Romans

Virgil – Aeneid

Livy

Plutarch – Romulus

Plutarch – Numa Pomulus

Plutarch – Coriolanus

Plutarch – Caesar

Caesar – Conquest of Gaul

Plutarch – Cato the Younger

Plutarch – Antony

Plutarch – Brutus

Plutarch – Cicero

Cicero – On Friendship

Cicero – On Duties

Tacitus – Annals

Lucretius – On the Nature of Things

Epictitus – Discourses

Marcus Aurelius – Meditations

Ptolemy – Almagest

Galen – On the Natural Faculties

Plotinus – Enneads

Old Testament – Genesis

New Testament

St John – Book of Revelation

St. Augustine – Confessions

Boethius – Consolation of Philosophy

St. Augustine – City of God

Muhammed – Qu’ran

Bede – History of the English People

Tennyson – Sir Galahad

Tennyson – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Al-Makrisi – Memoirs of the Crusades

Al-Makrisi – Crusade of St. Louis

Kempis – Imitation of Christ

Dante – The Divine Comedy

Year 3: Great Books of the High Middle Ages to the Renaissance

Chaucer – Canterbury Tales

Aquinas

Machiavelli – The Prince

Sir Thomas More – Utopia

Erasmus – Praise of Folly

Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion

Montaigne – Essays

Cervantes – Don Quixote

Shakespeare – Comedy of Errors

Shakespeare – A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

Shakespeare – The Taming of the Shrew

Shakespeare – Coriolanus

Shakespeare – Julius Caesar

Galileo – Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences

Shakespeare – The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare – Henry V

Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind

Descartes – Discourse on Method

Descartes – Meditations

Bacon – The New Atlantis

Bacon – Novum Organum

Hobbes – Leviathan

Milton – Paradise Lost

Pascal – Pensees

Shakespeare – Romeo & Juliet

Year 4: Great Books of the Modern Era

Shakespeare – Hamlet

Shakespeare – Othello

Shakespeare – King Lear

Shakespeare – The Tempest

Moliere – Tartuffe

Racine – Phaedra

Jonathan Swift – Gulliver’s Travels

John Locke – Essay Concerning Human Knowledge

John Locke – Second Essay on Civil Governmnet

John Locke – Letter on Toleration

David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume – Treatise of Human Nature

David Hume – Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Jacques Rousseau – The Social Contract

Jacques Rousseau – On the Origin of Inequality

The Federalist Papers

Aquinas – Q 105, Art.1

US Declaration of Independence

Articles of Confederation

The Constitution of the United States of America

De Tocqueville – Democracy in America

J.S. Mill – Representative Government

Jane Austen – Emma

Immanuel Kant – Critique of Pure Reason

Immanuel Kant – Fundamnetal Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

Goethe – Faust

Georg Hegel – Philosophy of Right

Georg Hegel – The Philosophy of History

Tolstoy – War and Peace

Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky – The Brother Karamazov

Adam Smith – Wealth of Nations

Communist Manifesto

Abraham Lincoln – 1st & 2nd Inaugural Addresses

Abraham Lincoln – Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln – Emancipation Proclamation

Henry David Thoreau – Walden

Henry David Thoreau – Disobedience

Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Charles Darwin – The Origin of Species

George Orwell – Nineteen Eighteen Four

Einstein – Relativity: The Special and General Theory

Willa Cather – My Antonia

Did I miss any Great Books of the Western World?If so, then please let me know in the comment section below!

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A novelist for Young Adults and Children. I am an extremely avid reader of science fiction and Korean literature, and love talking about books. I have worked and lived in Seoul, South Korea for over 5 years. I have TOPIK level 5 and enjoy reading Korean novels in Korean as well.

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